Amazon doesn't lead the pack on cloud hosting for no reason: Amazon Web Services (AWS) was the first platform of its kind on the market, has a wide range of services, and according to Garner it's number one in terms of having a strategic vision it can actually deliver on.

TechRepublic's smart person's guide about Amazon AI is a quick introduction to this artificial intelligence platform, as well as a "living" resource that will be updated periodically as new breakthroughs in AI and machine learning change how it operates.

Executive summary

What is Amazon AI? Amazon AI is Amazon's machine learning and AI platform that is part of AWS. It has three ready-to-use services—Rekognition, Polly, and Lex—as well as AI platforms, AI frameworks, and AI infrastructure that can be used collectively or separately to create a custom AI or machine learning product.

Why does Amazon AI matter? Amazon's two biggest cloud competitors, Google and Microsoft, offer AI frameworks on their cloud platforms, and for some purposes they offer more. Google and Microsoft don't offer, however, a robust free tier that can serve as an entry point into AI and machine learning without an overburdening amount of limitations.

Who does Amazon AI affect? Amazon AI can affect anyone who needs AI and machine learning software. It especially affects customers who already subscribe to AWS and don't want to split their hosting between platforms.

When is Amazon AI happening? Amazon AI was announced in November 2016 at re:Invent and is now available for use on AWS.

How do I start using Amazon AI? If you have an AWS account using Amazon AI is simple: All that's necessary is deploying an Amazon Linux or Ubuntu instance using Amazon's AWS Deep Learning AMI.

The AI framework level is the most development-intensive of the three—it's a basic Linux environment with all the tools needed to do AI and machine learning work, but it's up to the owner to build what they need.

Why does Amazon AI matter?

AWS may be the senior cloud computing provider in the market, but it's the new kid on the block when it comes to AI and machine learning hosting.

Google has been around longer and has more APIs to offer, and Microsoft's cognitive computing offerings go further than what Amazon currently has available, Forrester AI analyst Mike Gualtieri told me.

Where Amazon stands out, Gualtieri said, is in pricing.

Take Amazon Rekognition, for example. It typically costs $1.00 per 1,000 images analyzed. Once you pass 1,000,000 images the price drops to $0.80 per 1,000 images. Compare that to Google's Cloud Vision API, which costs $1.50 per 1,000 images, and then drops to $1.00 after 5,000,000 images are processed. The first 1,000 images are free, with Vision API but that really won't save too much money once you've racked up several thousand images processed.

On top of that, Amazon includes Rekognition and its other services in the free tier of AWS, so those who just want to get their feet wet in machine learning can give it a try without having to worry about paying. The free tier of Rekognition offers 5,000 processed images per month.

The free offering from Amazon is a huge boon to those who aren't sure they want to invest a considerable amount of money in AI or machine learning. In that way, Amazon AI matters to those new to the AI game.

Who does Amazon AI affect?

Amazon AI affects anyone who wants to get into machine learning without having to make a large investment for hosting or analysis. If those new to AWS manage to stay on the free tier there's a whole year of free API usage to get out of Amazon AI before having to pay a thing.

For those already paying for AWS, Amazon AI can serve to beef up big data processing capabilities without having to worry about splitting systems between different providers.

How do I start using Amazon AI?

Anyone with an AWS account who is willing to pay the additional fees (if they don't qualify for the free tier) to run Amazon AI components can start using it today. Amazon AI, like other AWS features, is charged on a per-use basis, so costs should be negligible for basic experimentation.

The three Amazon AI services can be used for free for a year, provided you don't perform more than a certain number of requests per month. After that the services are still relatively cheap: Polly, for instance, can process up to 1,000 1,000 character requests a month for only $4.00.

Other components, like the platforms and frameworks, are charged based on hours of use and prices vary per piece.

If you're interested in using any of Amazon AI's features, you'll need to get started using AWS, and then head over to the Amazon AI page so you can pick from the services offered.